


Disarmed

by treatster



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Ableism, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt Anakin Skywalker, Padawan Anakin Skywalker, Physical Disability, Post-Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:14:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23127613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treatster/pseuds/treatster
Summary: Mechanical prosthetics are no replacement for flesh. Anakin Skywalker learns this in intimate detail.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 75





	Disarmed

**Author's Note:**

> An alternate title would have been _Forearmed_ , but this was disregarded for being too much of a pun.
> 
> Warning: Anakin alludes to wishing that he had died instead of losing an arm.

It is not his arm. Not in any way that matters. It is a part of him, now, but it is not _of_ him, not in any recognizable way.

He imagines twitching a finger. A microsecond of delay later, the servos in the mechanical hand finally pick up the signal. The finger twitches.

He can hear them whirr and grind every time he moves the hand. It’s very different from the silent, smooth, machinery of flesh, bone, and muscle. It wakes him up, sometimes, when he twitches it in his sleep and the grind of metal reminds him of Geonosis all over again.

Later, Obi-Wan will take him to Ilum. There, he will find a new kyber crystal and construct a new lightsaber. This is the lightsaber that will last until the end of the Clone Wars and then long afterwards.

But when Anakin Skywalker grips his new lightsaber for the first time, he will feel nothing but the curious, vague sense of pressure that comes with holding something in his durasteel hand.

It is an ugly hand. It is—inelegant. Anakin could’ve done better.

It is ostentatiously gold. If he could have, he would have chosen differently.

But there are no choices in war. You take what is there and are grateful for it.

Dutifully, he flexes the stiff, grudgingly responsive, fingers. They are the typical exercises for humans only just getting used to their new prosthetics. They are simple little tasks.

Stretch this. Pinch that. Can you pick up this fork? Flimsiplast? Cup?

They bore him.

And unsettlingly, they tire him. His arm—what’s left of it—shakes at the end of the exercises, as if he’d gone in a full bout with Obi-Wan rather than just trying and failing to drink from a cup.

The Jedi are needed for the war. He is needed for the war.

But he is so slow. He cannot get used to the weight of the arm. He is unbalanced.

He is useless. Utterly, completely useless. He can’t even keep a good grip on the practice lightsabers. 

How is he supposed to fight? The Jedi, he hears, are Generals and Commanders now.

How is he supposed to stay by Obi-Wan’s side? Anakin is his Padawan, but he can’t even keep up.

Anakin has become a liability. There is no room for liabilities, not now, not ever. There is no room for him, not with this weakness.

With his left, flesh, hand, Anakin gives up and brings the cup to his mouth, drinking the water. The durasteel prosthetic hangs uselessly on his right side.

In the very, very long moments when Anakin Skywalker is alone with only his thoughts and the mechanical arm to keep him company, he sometimes thinks that it would have been better if he hadn’t lost his arm, but himself instead.

  
Afterwards, after everything, Darth Vader _knows_ it.


End file.
